Author Archives: legallysociable

MLK streets in the US contained in a “nation within a nation”

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Many American cities have streets named after Martin Luther King Jr. and many are located within black areas:

Across the country there are 730 streets named after civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr…

For his book “Along Martin Luther King: Travels on Black America’s Main Street,” author Jonathan Tilove visited nearly 500 Martin Luther King streets across the country. In his book, he described a “nation within a nation” as “a parallel universe.”

“For many whites, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are lost,” Tilove wrote. “For many blacks, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are found.”

And Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. drive in Chicago has its own complicated past:

Instead, a South Side designation was boosted by Mayor Richard J. Daley. It was a move Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor describe as “disingenuous” in their Daley biography “American Pharaoh.”

Foes when King was alive, Daley, by supporting the renaming, was attempting to portray himself as a forward thinker on race relations ahead of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the biographers said.

In dedicating the street, Daley “invoked King’s devotion to nonviolence in a verbal formation that made it sound as if Daley had the idea first,” Cohen and Taylor wrote.

Par for the course in a racialized country: where the effects of race extend even to street names. That said, I wonder what would happen in some major cities if there were efforts to extend MLK street into white and/or tourist areas…

“Using a Real Life SimCity to Design a Massive Development”

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As a massive SimCity fan, I find this use of predictive urban models intriguing:

596 acres, 50,000 residents, $4 billion dollars and even a 1,500-boat marina: Everything about the proposed Chicago Lakeside Development, developer Dan McCaffery’s massive micro-city being built at the former site of the U.S. Steel Southworks Plant, is on a different scale. It follows that the design process for this mixed-use project requires a different set of tools, in this case, LakeSim, an advanced computer modeling program. Developed as part of a collaboration between the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and McCaffery Interests, this program functions like a customized SimCity, analyzing and simulating weather, traffic patterns and energy usage to help architects and designers plan for a site that may eventually contain more than 500 buildings.

“A lot of the Big Data approaches tend to be statistical in nature, looking at past data,” says Argonne scientist Jonathan Ozik. “We’re modeling a complex system of interactive components, running the data forward, so what we end up having is your SimCity analogy, energy systems interacting, vehicles and people moving. What we’re doing here is using a complex systems approach to tackle the problem.”…

The challenge for planners is predicting how so many different systems and variables will interact. LakeSim gives them a framework to analyze these systems over long timelines and run millions of scenarios much quicker than past models — hours as opposed to days — asking “hundreds of questions at once,” according to Ozik. The program is a step forward from similar modeling software, especially valuable at a site that in most respects is being built from scratch.

This seems quite useful at this point but it will be necessary to look at this down the road once the site is developed. How much time did the model save? How accurate was the model? Did relying on such a model lead to negative outcomes? If this is a predictive model, it may be only as good as the outcome.

Interesting to note that the commenters at the bottom are wondering where all the people to live in this development are going to come from. I assume that demand is appropriately accounted for in the model?

Sales of McMansions up 21%; remaining 99% of market down 7.6%

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At least one statistic suggests the housing market is still split into two divided camps: one that is thriving and one that is not.

Consider this incredible statistic from the research analyst Redfin: through last April, sales of the McMansions of America – the top 1% of homes by price – rocketed up 21% compared to last year. But sales of the other 99% of homes were down 7.6%.

It’s not even clear that rising home prices – traditionally a way to measure a recovery – would be good for the middle class. Price increases harm the affordability of homes, particularly for first-time homebuyers, who have not returned to the market at their historical level. This is an important group: first-time homebuyers drive the entire market, allowing sellers to step up into bigger homes…

When prospective homebuyers are actually asked about their biggest obstacle to purchasing, a majority cites “rising home prices” and “quality of inventory”, meaning the lack of decent homes in the buyer’s price range. So it’s not surprising to see a drought in lending, and a reduction in homeownership rates from 69% in 2006 to 65% in 2014. It has nothing to do with bank regulation; it has to do with purchasing power.

In the words of senior loan officer Logan Mohtashami, “we simply don’t have enough qualified home buyers to have a true housing recovery in America.”

While I’m not sure that the top 1% of houses are all McMansions – the term tends to refer to certain styles of homes rather than just the price – the data seems fairly consistent in recent months: the housing market has not fully or evenly recovered. More expensive homes are hot as are particular locales, such as luxury condos in New York and Miami. The slump continues at the lower end of the market where builders aren’t that motivated (why build cheaper housing units when there are bigger margins on those luxury units?) and potential homebuyers don’t have the savings to move in or up and also may still be trapped in their current mortgages.

Pseudo equation/PR attempt to label the most depressing day of the year

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Yesterday may have just been the most depressing day of the year if you believe one argument:

The idea of Blue Monday dates back to a 2005 campaign by Sky Travel. The company wanted to encourage people to take January vacations, so they reached out to Arnall, who developed his equation to find the most depressing day of the year.

Media, the public, and even other companies latched onto the idea. A U.K. group started a website dedicated to “beating Blue Monday.” Another group, bluemonday.org, encourages acts of kindness on the date.

Scientists, however, say there is no evidence that Blue Monday causes any more sadness than other specific days of the year. Burnett has been outspoken on the topic, publishing multiple blogs in The Guardian dedicated to dispelling the myth…

Burnett blames slow January news cycles, general post-holidays discontent, and “confirmation bias” for the term’s endurance.

“(People) feel down at this time of year, and the Blue Monday claim makes it seem like there are scientific reasons for this,” Burnett said in an email exchange. “It also breaks down a very complex issue into something easily quantifiable and simple, and that tends to please a lot of people, giving the impression that the world is predictable and measurable.”

And what is this equation?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/19/today-is-saddest-day-year-and-there-blue-monday-equation-that-explains-why/?intcmp=latestnews

This is almost brilliant: come up with an equation (everyone knows equations make things more scientific and true), put it out there in January (dark and cold already), and the media eats it up (every morning show host ever hates Mondays). And the scientific data? Lacking.

That said, it would be intriguing to more into mass societal emotions around different times of the year. Is Christmas an excuse for many just to be happy for a month between Thanksgiving and the end of the year? I remember seeing a suggestion from someone that we should move Christmas later, perhaps to the middle of January, so we can enjoy the Thanksgiving high a bit longer before being pressed into another holiday. Or, what about those arguments that we need a national holiday the day after the Super Bowl? Given the amount of interaction people today have with the mass media (something like eleven hours of media consumption a day on average), couldn’t publicly displayed emotions have some effect on how we feel? Perhaps this has little or no effect compared to the effect of the emotions from the people nearby on us in our social networks.

Academics summing up the evils of suburbia

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In looking at the new book Global Suburbs: Urban Sprawl from the Rio Grande to Rio de Janeiro, I was struck by the opening statement by the series editor, sociologist Sharon Zukin. Here is her opening (page ix):

In Global Suburbs: From the Rio Grande to Rio de Janeiro, Lawrence Herzog exposes the dystopian underside of the suburban American dream. A house of one’s own, on a little plot of land, is no longer a place of domestic comfort, spiritual renewal, and communion with the green space and clear air of nature. Instead, the mass suburban habitat that Americans pioneered features oversized McMansions stuffed with giant TVs and electronic gadgets, to which their owners commute in gas-guzzling SUVs, enduring stressful journeys on traffic-clogged roads, leaving neither space nor time for pleasure.

This human habitat, Herzog warns, is neither a happy nor a healthy place. It is, instead, a treadmill of over-consumption that burdens our bodies, our spirits, and the natural environment. Obesity, anxiety, toxic air: how can we think this is a good life?

Most important, the suburban dream that Herzog describes now spreads throughout North and South America…Every metropolitan area in the Western hemisphere bears a tragic cost: Overbuilding reduces the water supply, destroys the trees and insects on which all life depends, and creates an eco-disaster.

Naming these issues can be important as many suburban residents don’t consider the implications of consumption, their impact on the surrounding ecology (particularly if the rest of the world consumed at similar levels), and whether such a suburban life truly offers the be-all-end-all of existence. Yet, this description tends toward the over-the-top suburban critique that has been leveled for decades. Here we have another citing of McMansions and SUVs together – key symbols of excessive consumption – even though many suburbanites have neither. How anxious and stressed are these suburbanites – if the milieu is so toxic, why did they keep moving there for decades? (They are either dupes tricked by someone or have misplaced priorities.) Was there once a golden age of suburbs that wasn’t about over-consumption and truly was about “domestic comfort, spiritual renewal, and communion with the green space and clear air of nature”? (There is evidence of this but it tended to be limited to the wealthy, provided limited opportunities for women, and also had a view of a certain kind of nature.)

On to the rest of the book…

Would cities consider tiny house villages to combat homelessness?

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One writer explores how villages of tiny houses can address problems of homelessness in American cities:

Tiny-home villages for the homeless have retained the idea of everyone having their own tiny structure to sleep and find privacy in, but have, for the most part, consolidated bathroom, kitchen, and recreational space into one or two communal buildings with some combination of plumbing, electricity, and heat. In many ways, they are a multi-roof version of the old-fashioned urban SRO (single-room occupancy) hotel or boarding house, with separate bedrooms but shared baths and kitchen, that provided the working and nonworking poor with affordable living options in so many cities before gentrification turned those properties into boutique hotels or market-rate apartments…

In this regard, they may be solutions that not only alleviate homelessness, but also prevent it by creating more affordable housing. They provide an option below the lowest rungs of market rent, which in cities such as Portland and Eugene can start around $700. In the gap between such rents and low-income units (such as those subsidized by the federal Section 8 program), for which there are often long waits, homeless people often have no options except for shelters — which afford no privacy and, more vexingly, usually kick people out between early morning and late afternoon — or the streets…

They may sound prefab, but tiny-home villages, governed and operated at least in part by the villagers themselves, offer a modicum of safety, stability, warmth, cleanliness, autonomy, and privacy. The feds “have very high standards for [traditional] affordable housing and it’s quite expensive,” said Kitty Piercy, Eugene’s mayor, “so Opportunity and Emerald are ways for us to be able to help some people at a much-reduced cost.”

Add to that reduced fear and stress on the part of residents. “I don’t wanna live here forever,” I was told on a visit to Opportunity Village by a wiry, sweet-natured, 42-year-old recovering alcoholic who goes by the name Johnny Awesome. He was building a small greenhouse onto the front of his cheerful blue cottage, festooned with colored flags and a small disco ball. “This isn’t the top rung of society,” he said. “And the weather dictates a typical day here too much.” Sunny days found residents outside, gardening and building; rainy and cold ones found them holed up in their cottages or congregating in the 30-foot-diameter communal yurt containing computers with Wi-Fi, a large-screen TV, and a pantry.

As the overview goes on to note, this may not just be an issue of being able to build some tiny houses and forming a community. Rather, such villages raise larger questions that cities need to address. Are they willing to let some profitable land be used for such purposes? Where might they allow zoning for such villages? Are cities truly committed to affordable housing? Are cities willing to address the complex issues of homelessness rather than simply trying to regulate or legislate homeless people away? These are not easy questions for cities to answer as they all feel the need for more revenue and exciting new developments. Tiny house villages might be effective ways to address homelessness but they come with an opportunity cost of the land not being used for something else.

I wonder if there is a major city outside of the particular area profiled here – “So far, they seem to be occurring in and around mid- and small-size Western cities whose cultures have some mix of permissive, progressive politics and a certain pioneer DIY spirit” – that would be willing to run an experiment with such a community.

Another post-apocalyptic McMansion dweller on a new TV show

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A new Fox show featuring the last man alive has him living in a McMansion:

The former Saturday Night Live performer, creator and star of the new Fox comedy (March 1, 9 p.m. ET/PT), plays a survivor of a virus that decimates the Earth’s population. His character drives across the U.S. looking for people before settling in a McMansion in Tucson.

During filming, he has had the freedom to explore what a lone planetary survivor could do, such as roll bowling balls at aquariums in a parking lot…

Forte (Nebraska), who grew a big, bushy beard for the role, said he thinks many people have wondered about being Earth’s last survivor.

“This idea seems to be, even though it’s very far-fetched, very relatable,” he said. Many people “have heard the question, ‘What would you do if you were the last person on Earth?’ “

And yet this man who could do anything chooses to live in a McMansion? Aren’t these shoddily-constructed and mass-produced homes not going to last very long? I suspect the critique here is that even as the world ends, some of the products of our society that aren’t that great – like McMansions – will live on. A Google image search suggests the character will wander into a sports stadium and an art museum. Here is the one hint I could find of the McMansion-strewn Tucson landscape.

Addressing social change in Toronto’s inner-ring suburbs

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North America’s fourth-largest city has a number of changed suburbs that have more lower-class residents and immigrants:

David Hulchanski’s seminal 2006 study, The Three Cities within Toronto, documents the shift of poverty from the inner-city to the inner-suburbs of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. The University of Toronto sociologist also made it clear that the poor increasingly tend to be immigrants. The rich, meanwhile, have moved downtown. Only they can afford the cost of housing there.

The third of Hulchanski’s three cities, which encompasses Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke, has experienced the largest increase in immigrants, rising from 31 per cent of the population in 1970 to more than 60 per cent today. During the same time, incomes in those same areas declined almost 40 per cent, more than any other part of Toronto.

Though Toronto is the more tolerant and inclusive city of the two, the social mobility that historically took immigrants from the places they arrived to the places they finally settled has slowed or even disappeared. Low wages, high youth unemployment and a crumbling infrastructure don’t inspire confidence, let alone optimism.

That’s why Toronto’s future lies in its suburbs. That’s why their needs are the needs of all. It’s also why failure to deal with them will hurt the entire city.

So far, the response has been more focused on mollifying suburban discontent than transforming vast swaths of the postwar landscape into more urban configurations. Rather than squander billions on feel-good projects like the Scarborough subway, we need more programs like tower renewal. Transit is essential to move people and connect them; but in addition, many highrise suburban communities desperately need to be remade to 21st-century standards.

This mirrors the circumstances of a number of American inner-ring suburbs: as wealthier (and often whiter) residents have moved to more exclusive suburbs or gleaming high-rises downtown, more poor and non-white residents have moved to cheaper suburbs that often had more industrial and blue collar work. But, what works best to renew these communities? Continue to play up on their advantages in industry and manufacturing (cities and suburbs have been severely hurt in recent decades with the loss of manufacturing jobs)? Compete in new areas like suburban entertainment and culture (wealthier communities often an advantage here)? New housing is often needed in these inner-ring suburbs – their housing stock often dates to the decades before World War II – but it is hard to come up with money to undertake big changes.

One route is to play up their more urban aspects: they may offer a taste of suburban life but are still much closer to everything the city has to offer. Many suburban communities have pursued transit-oriented development built around subway, train, and bus lines that provide quick connections to amenities within that community as well as nearby.

Baseball games average 17 minutes 58 seconds of action

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Surpassing football games, one analysis suggests baseball games average 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action:

By WSJ calculations, a baseball fan will see 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three-hour game. This is roughly the equivalent of a TED Talk, a Broadway intermission or the missing section of the Watergate tapes. A similar WSJ study on NFL games in January 2010 found that the average action time for a football game was 11 minutes. So MLB does pack more punch in a battle of the two biggest stop-and-start sports. By seven minutes.

The WSJ reached this number by taking the stopwatch to three different games and timing everything that happened. We then categorized the parts of the game that could fairly be considered “action” and averaged the results. The almost 18-minute average included balls in play, runner advancement attempts on stolen bases, wild pitches, pitches (balls, strikes, fouls and balls hit into play), trotting batters (on home runs, walks and hit-by-pitches), pickoff throws and even one fake-pickoff throw. This may be generous. If we’d cut the action definition down to just the time when everyone on the field is running around looking for something to do (balls in play and runner advancement attempts), we’d be down to 5:47.

I’m sure some might quibble with the methodology. Yet, the findings suggest two things:

1. A significant amount of excitement about sporting events may have to do with the time between action rather than the action itself. Sure, we care a lot about the plays but the fun includes the anticipation between action as well as the conversation and analysis that takes place then. In other words, sports involves a lot of patience.

2. The “feel” of the action may matter more for perceptions than the actual measurement of action. Football and other sports include faster action and more players moving at a time, giving an image of more total action. This particularly shows up on television. Perhaps it is more of a question of do fans prefer group action or more solitary action?

Growing real estate segment: commercial cannabis real estate

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A new startup wants to help buyers and sellers identify properties that are eligible to grow and/or sell marijuana:

Chicago’s real estate industry is in the midst of a few building booms, but if a new startup has its way, another one is about to bloom: commercial cannabis real estate. HerbFront, co-founded by CEO Alan O’Connell and Matt Chapdelaine, head of business development, want to create the Zillow of marijuana-based real estate. Their concept, which they’re developing at the ElmSpring accelerator at 1871 and plan to release in February, is a tool that lets investors see where they can legally locate dispensaries and grow operations, and helps property owners discover if buildings in their portfolio qualify for this potentially lucrative market. According to O’Connell, zoning rules and regulations can make locating a dispensary or grow operation complicated, but the huge upside means entrepreneurs are looking for someone to help point them in the right direction.

“There’s a lot of murky water in the industry, right now,” says Chapdelaine. “A lot of people are looking to access real estate, and real estate people are looking to access the industry.”

HerbFront will offer an array of services, from listing a property for $50 on its database to leasing the software to providing specialized business intelligence to investors and municipalities, in effect becoming a consultancy as well as a marketplace for these industry-specific property transactions. Chapdelaine, who has background as a broker, saw what happened during the last permit application process in Illinois, and believes his program can fill an important gap, as well as provide a form of insurance for those spending at least $250,000 to obtain a permit. With that kind of down payment to start a small business, obtaining a guarantee from HerbFront that potential sites are properly zoned becomes valuable (or so the founders hope).

I could see how this service might be valuable. But, it seems less difficult to map the available properties than it will be to predict and/or know what these properties might be worth. How profitable are such facilities? Are there other businesses or services that want to be or are needed near marijuana facilities? More broadly, could these be tools for economic development? From what I read about planning for such facilities in different Chicago suburbs, there is still hesitation based on what kind of people and activity such facilities could attract as well as how they might affect the reputation and image of the community. But, if they became a unique opportunity for economic development, perhaps communities would be falling over themselves to attract one.